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NYT

Building a $325,000 in-vitro burger

Down the hall, in a lab with incubators filled with clear plastic containers holding a pinkish liquid, a technician was tending to the delicate task of growing the tens of billions of cells needed to make the burger, starting with a particular type of cell removed from cow necks obtained at a slaughterhouse.

The idea of creating meat in a laboratory — actual animal tissue, not a substitute made from soybeans or other protein sources — has been around for decades. The arguments in favor of it are many, covering both animal welfare and environmental issues.

A 2011 study in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, for example, showed that full-scale production of cultured meat could greatly reduce water, land and energy use, and emissions of methane and other greenhouse gases, compared with conventional raising and slaughtering of cattle or other livestock. Those environmental arguments will only gain strength, advocates say, as worldwide demand for meat increases with the rise of middle-class populations in China and elsewhere.

Dr. Post, one of a handful of researchers in the field, has made strides in developing cultured meat through the use of stem cells — precursor cells that can turn into others that are specific to muscle, for example — and techniques adapted from medical research for growing tissues and organs, a field known as tissue engineering. (Indeed, Dr. Post, a physician, considers himself first and foremost a tissue engineer, and about four-fifths of his time is dedicated to studying how to build blood vessels.)

Blowback

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Or, you know, raise them and slaughter them like humans have been doing since the Neolithic Age?

From the looks of this, the goal is not to feed people – which we have trouble doing anyway – but to feed people while also satisfying liberal rules, which is absolutely impossible since liberals hate people.

This is the same bunch that pushes for all-organic foods, which is essentially signing the death warrant for the Third World. The fact that the burger costs as much as it does should tell you something.

Depends on how well the process is hammered out. Potentially one use could be like hydroponic crops – growing food in places that you absolutely cannot grow it traditionally. (ie; in the dirt) Or if it’s streamlined enough, it would free up the crops used to feed the animals to feed humans.

But yeah, a lot of questions about this, and I wouldn’t be the first to take a bite from that burger.

People are losing their sh!t over GMO crops, and someone actually thinks lab grown meat is going to fly? It is to laugh.

cptacek on May 14, 2013 at 11:13 PM

Don’t be too sure. We have people very eager to turn control of their cars over to computers for the convenience…when it took one of the biggest software companies most of its history to build an OS that didn’t crash when you looked at it cross-eyed.

We are tampering with creating life at the most basic of levels and the voices saying “now WAIT just a God-blessed minute” are growing fewer.

My basic rational here is, if we can someday get by without killing animals to survive, then we probably should. That isn’t to say that killing for food is wrong, just, that if we have other options we should probably take advantage.

Besides, this is probably a decade or two off. More likely two then one, but I’ve been surprised before.

This is good. Mastering the ability to produce meat from vats will make extraterrestrial habitation more likely.

As for the “yuk” factor consider this: we’re not talking about a meat substitute like cool whip is a whipped cream substitute. We’re talking about actual cow meat. The cells of this vat grown beef are identical to the slaughtered cow. Once the process is perfected you wouldn’t be able to determine the difference between the two anymore than you could discern which girl at the homecoming dance was a test tube baby. They will taste and feel the same- the vat grown may even have less chemicals in it as they may not need to use hormone boosters like we do in real cows.

My basic rational here is, if we can someday get by without killing animals to survive, then we probably should. That isn’t to say that killing for food is wrong, just, that if we have other options we should probably take advantage.

WolvenOne on May 15, 2013 at 3:25 AM

So, be a vegetarian.

Although, I have a long-time vegetarian friend who’s constantly shaping things that look like meat out of soy or tofu or veggie mush held together with gluten. He’d probably be all over this.

A cloned cow would still have to be raised, fed, and slaughtered. The point of this is to avoid all that.

My concern is how it will taste. We know there is a difference in taste between grass-fed beef and grain-fed beef, so how will “lab-grown” beef taste? That, and the cost. This seems like a lot of expense to go to to get a hamburger patty. How much is it going to cost to get 1500 lbs (i.e. a single cow)?

What about the cost? High priced lab grow meat vs live stock. What about the massive unemployment and loss of tax revenue when we close the ranches, slaughter houses, farms and butcher trade?

As far as the bugaboo over AGW with methane and such. These are the same people that lament the loss of the millions of herd animals that use to occupy the plains. If their poop and gas didn’t plunge the earth into a fiery inferno then why would our ranching be a problem?

They used fetal bovine serum to grow these cells, which comes from the blood of slaughtered fetal cows. I have worked with mammalian tissue culture, and it probably took a liter of fbs to grow a tablespoon of muscle cells. So one hamburger patty would cost the lives of dozens of cows. I guess fetal cows don’t count as real cows?

We’re talking about actual cow meat. The cells of this vat grown beef are identical to the slaughtered cow. Once the process is perfected you wouldn’t be able to determine the difference between the two anymore than you could discern which girl at the homecoming dance was a test tube baby. They will taste and feel the same- the vat grown may even have less chemicals in it as they may not need to use hormone boosters like we do in real cows.
Browncoatone on May 15, 2013 at 5:43 AM

I disagree. Unless they are also growing fat cells (i.e., marbling), this won’t taste too good.